An electrocardiogram (ECG) is a diagnostic technique that periodically monitors and records heart electrophysiological activities by electrodes placed on the skin surface. The principle of ECG is that, while tiny electrical signals are generated on the skin surface that arise from the depolarization and repolarization of myocardial cells during each heartbeat, those electrical signals will be captured and amplified by ECG recording or monitoring devices to produce the ECG diagrams of the person being tested.
The structure used for capturing changes of electrical signals on the skin surface can be an ECG patch. The surface of such ECG patch has several button-like electrodes. While in use, conductive gels will be spread on the surface of the electrodes, and the electrodes will be adhered to the skin surface on the chest of the person to be tested for capturing electrical signals generated from heartbeats. These signals will eventually be transmitted to ECG devices to produce the ECG diagrams.
Although conventional ECG patches are fully capable of precisely detecting tiny electrical signals on the human skin surface, the button-like electrodes on the ECG patch is, however, connected to the electrical circuit on the patch by soldering or buckling, so that the manufacturing process may be more complex because each button-like electrode needs to be soldered or buckled to combine with the patch. Consequently, the manufacturing costs are hard to be effectively reduced, and the overall cost of such kind of product will be high.
Other than the aforementioned ECG patch, the electrode patches used for electric stimulation such as transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) are also capable of transmitting electrical signals. Contrary to the ECG that transmits electric signals from the skin to the device, these kinds of electrode patches transmit electrical signals generated by, for instance, a transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulator to the human body, to create effects such as massage or rehabilitation.
The structure of the aforementioned electrode patch is quite similar to the conventional ECG patch, and they all include multiple button-like electrodes. The button-like electrodes all need to be soldered or buckled for connecting to the electrical circuit of the patch. As mentioned above, these kinds of structure are not easily manufactured due to the complexity of the process, thus causing a shortcoming of high cost.